The new MIT SENSEable City lab studies changes to our built environment. It taps into handheld and wearable electronics to aid design tools and uses real time data to measure impact on physical structure.

In April of 2013, the City of Amsterdam made an award to TU Delft, Wageningen University and MIT as the “convincing winner of the AMS design contest.” The city proposed a research institute that would foster the creation of urban solutions for water, energy, waste, food, and data management. The result is a collaboration of academic and research institutions, enterprise, municipalities and local residents.

Carolien Gehrels, Deputy Mayor of the City of Amsterdam and a founder of AMS, awards Carlo Ratti with a branded hat and sweatshirt.

Ms. Carolien Gehrels, the Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam, is the founder and driving force behind the 50M Euros awarded to create AMS and she is as unique as her city.

With the goal of turning Amsterdam into a living laboratory, Ms. Gehrels intends to establish and improve relationships between the internationally important cities of Amsterdam and Boston. She believes that interaction between cultural and institutional entities will improve life in cities for everyone. She quotes Oxfam as recognizing the Dutch as the #1 food system in the world. Dr. Jan Willem van der Schans, of Wageningen UR, supported her points with research showing that the Dutch utilize short food chains and provide support for local urban farms. Rather than push farms out, they integrate them into the city as they have done at Schipol Airport. This supports the hyper local direction I have increasingly seen and the tremendous growth in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA farms), here in the USA.

Here are some fun facts about Amsterdam:

More bicycles (881k) than inhabitants (811k).

58% of population bike daily

Rowe’s Wharf in Boston Harbor where the livable cities meeting took place.

The city contains:

8 windmills

75 museums

22 paintings by Rembrandt

207 paintings by Van Gogh

Amsterdam believes the future will be determined by 20-30 world class cities where clusters create innovation…and they fully intend to be on that list.

Yaniv Jacob Turgeman of MIT with Deputy Mayor Carolien Gehrels on the Stad Amsterdam, Indeed I AM DE SMART